The University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center has named Erika Newman, M.D., as its first associate director for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. She will lead the center’s efforts to diversify the next generation of healthcare professionals and researchers, and to champion an anti-racist and just culture within the cancer center.
Dr. Newman, a Taubman Emerging Scholar, is a pediatric surgeon with broad expertise in the care of children with solid tumors as well as a basic-science research lab that focuses on understanding tumor-specific DNA repair mechanisms as novel therapeutic options for pediatric neuroblastoma. She serves as surgical director of the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital’s solid tumor oncology program.
In 2020, Newman was the recipient of a Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award in recognition of her work and leadership in the area of cultural diversity.
“My goal for this new role is to home in on DEIJ as a component of the cancer center’s core mission,” she said. “It touches everything we do from the way we take care of patients, to the way we recruit patients into clinical trials, to how we educate learners in the cancer space and how we build the pipeline of the next generation of leaders in the field.”
